Next climate report to 'scare the wits out of everyone'

Ex-U.N. official 'confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum'

Published: 11/08/2012 at 10:52 PM

(Brisbane Times) The next United Nations climate report will ”scare the wits out of everyone” and should provide the impetus needed for the world to finally sign an agreement to tackle global warming, the former head of the UN negotiations said.

Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.

“That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,” Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. “I’m confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.”

The IPCC’s fifth assessment report is due to be published in late 2013 and early 2014.